


promises like ashes

by Adrianna99



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't copy to another site, Firelord Zuko (Avatar), Found Family, Gen, Jet (Avatar) Lives, Mistaken Identity, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24743314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrianna99/pseuds/Adrianna99
Summary: Jet looks desperately to Katara.  “He admitted it!” he exclaims.  “War or not, Lee’s a firebender!  He’s from theFire Nation.”Katara frowns at him.  “Jet, we know.”Jet gapes at her.  “You—?”The blind earthbender hops down from her perch at the counter, wanders over to join her friends and Lee.  “’Course we know,” she says with a wide grin, and punches Lee on the arm.  He glares at her.  The earthbender’s grin somehow widens further.  “It’d be kinda hard for him to be the Firelord if he wasn’t from the Fire Nation.”There’s a moment of silence, and then Jet wheezes, “He's thewhat?”[Every morning Jet wakes up alive in a free Ba Sing Se, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself]
Comments: 62
Kudos: 1730





	promises like ashes

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't anticipate writing an Avatar fic despite really, really loving the show after finally watching it, and yet,,,,,,,,, here I am, initially inspired by [this](https://iwritebetterthanispeak.tumblr.com/post/620949128488402945) post and now in possession of 5k far-more-serious-than-anticipated words of fic, because apparently I have a lot more complicated feelings about Jet than I thought.
> 
> Enjoy!

Jet wakes up slowly, hurting (his vision is blurry and fractured, and his ribs ache every time he moves, and he feels like there’s a rabid platypus-bear trying to escape from his skull) but alive.

He wakes up to see an unfamiliar wooden ceiling above his head (not the last thing he had seen before passing out, not the last thing he had thought he would see alive, not the stone roof of the Dai Li’s base in Lake Laogai as he expected to be all but buried alive) and a thin, rough woolen blanket pulled over him.

He wakes up to the sound of marching boots in the streets outside and the hum of muffled conversation and the crackle of fire.

Jet wakes up, panics, tries to sit up, and almost passes out again from the pain.

“Jet!” someone— Smellerbee?— exclaims, and then there’s a hand on his back and another on his shoulder and he’s gently lowered into bed again.His vision is blurry, and it takes him a moment to focus on Smellerbee’s face above him.She’s frowning, her usual red warpaint missing, hair mussed and eyes tired.She looks so much older, for a moment, than her fourteen years.A moment later, another familiar face appears at her side— Longshot, his hat pulled low over his face, but not enough to hide the worry in his eyes.

“What—?” Jet tries to ask, disoriented, pained.“How—?”

“We’re… it’s safe,” Smellerbee says uncertainly.She frowns harder.“As safe as we can be, at least.”Jet opens his mouth, but she explains before he can ask.“The Fire Nation’s occupied Ba Sing Se.”

All of the air in Jet’s lungs leaves him in one breath, and he feels his heart crumple.The Fire Nation— in Ba Sing Se— in the walls, the last refuge— there’s no escape from them— anywhere—

“Jet,” Smellerbee says softly.Longshot touches his shoulder, and then steps away.He comes back a moment later with a beat-up tin bowl, steaming slightly.“Try to eat something?” Smellerbee says tentatively, and carefully helps him sit up again.

With trembling fingers, Jet takes the bowl, sips the broth.It’s weak, but likely all they can afford (all they can manage living in the Lower Ring, with the city _occupied_ —)“What happened?” he manages to rasp.“How did we escape?”

Smellerbee and Longshot exchange looks.“The Dai Li were distracted by the Avatar and his friends,” Smellerbee explains slowly.“We were able to escape in the commotion.”

There’s something else, something they’re not telling him, but Jet knows enough to let it go.(He recognizes the expression on her face, after all.It’s the same one she had the first time she had to kill a Fire Nation bastard, the same one she’d had when she’d finally come around to his plan to blow the dam and drown soldiers and citizens alike.It’s the expression she gets when she hates herself for doing what she has to.Jet hates himself, just a bit, for putting that expression on her face.Again)

Smellerbee’s lips are pressed together, and she looks like she’s trying not to cry.She looks so much younger, for a moment, than her fourteen years.“It was really touch-and-go for a while, Jet,” she says, and her voice doesn’t tremble.“We weren’t sure you were going to wake up.”

“And—“ Jet tries to ask.He sets aside the bowl, half-finished, suddenly unable to stomach any more.“The others?The Avatar?”

Smellerbee and Longshot exchange that look again.“It’s— no one knows what happened, really,” Smellerbee says softly.“But the Fire Nation says that the Avatar is dead.”

Jet’s stomach seizes, and he barely avoids throwing up.He doubles over, and Longshot’s there to steady him.“Dead?” he manages to repeat through the burning in his throat, his chest, his eyes (burning, _damned_ burning, can’t escape the Fire Nation even in his own body—)

Longshot nods.His fingers, callused from years of pulling back a bowstring, notching arrows, climbing trees, grip Jet’s arm.

“So that’s it, then,” Jet says hollowly.He looks up at Smellerbee, and he can’t manage to hide the hopelessness on his face (he _needs_ to hide it, _needs_ to be strong, these are his friends, his kids, his family, and even though he’d gone back on his promise to them he _needs_ to be strong for them now—)

“So that’s it,” Jet whispers again.“The Fire Nation’s in Ba Sing Se.The Avatar’s dead.They’ve won.”

Smellerbee looks like she wants to argue, but she can’t.What is there to say?

Jet buries his face in his shaking hands and, with his only two friends by his side, does his best not to cry.

(When they hear, later, that the Fire Nation lied— that the Avatar is alive, that he’s been spotted still fighting— Jet _does_ cry.Is this what having hope does to him?Has it made him weak?

He should have known, though— the Fire Nation always lies.They _always_ lie.

And the Avatar is alive, and even though Ba Sing Se has fallen maybe the Fire Nation can fall too, and _blast this damned hope he has all of the sudden, blast it to pieces—_ )

* * *

Jet wakes up quickly to the sound of marching boots in the streets outside and the shouts of hurried orders and the crackle of fire.

He’d been resting— at Smellerbee’s insistence, damn her nagging (but she’s his sister, and Longshot his brother, in everything but blood, in everything that _matters_ , and it makes him want to crack apart and shatter into pieces that they still care enough to nag him even after all the mistakes he’s made, after the promises of starting over he’s broken that taste like ashes in his mouth, after all the danger he’s dragged them into), that he was still injured, still unwell.

 _Some leader he was_ , he’d grumbled as she'd herded him to bed and left for work (she’d been working days, Longshot nights, to keep their small room in the occupied city of Ba Sing Se, because apparently even Fire Nation bastards need people to peel their potatoes and repair their walls).And he _had_ rested, until he’d been woken up by the sound of marching boots and shouts and fire (the sounds of _war)._

“Longshot!” Jet hisses.He carefully scrambles out of bed, avoiding jostling his ribs (fucking things won’t _damn_ heal, and he knows it’d be quicker if he just stayed in bed, and now his conscience sounds a little like Smellerbee, _fuck_ )

Longshot glances up from where he’s sitting by the window of their tiny room in their Lower Ring slum, examining his arrows.

“What’s going on?” Jet asks, shuffling over.

Wordlessly, Longshot shifts over just enough that Jet can see out the window— and he sees _chaos._ Fire Nation tanks rolling down the street, soldiers swarming like buzzard-wasps to defend their hive, and then a great wave of fire rolls down the street, sweeping them all back.Jet gapes— gapes at the fire, at the singular figure in white and blue controlling it, as it corrals the Fire Nation troops into a jumbled, groaning pile without so much as singeing the buildings on either side of the street— and then turns to Longshot.“What?”

Longshot’s lips twitch up in the ghost of a smile, his shoulders tilt, his fingers tighten around the grip of his bow. _Resistance,_ his smile says. _They’re taking the city back,_ his shoulders say. ** _We’re_** _fighting back,_ his fingers say.He gently nudges Jet aside, nocks an arrow, and shoots out the window before letting Jet see.

On the street below, behind the figure in white and blue who had so skillfully been turning his element on his own people, there is a Fire Nation soldier.The soldier had been holding a knife, ready to strike from behind.Now, the soldier has an arrow through his arm, his knife kicked away.

The figure in white and blue looks up, up to the window where Longshot is already nocking another arrow.The figure in white and blue lifts a hand, grateful, lifts his face with a smile, and—

“Wait,” Jet says, his head spinning. (Maybe he’s still dreaming?Maybe he’s hallucinating?Smellerbee and Longshot have done their best to get him what medicine they can, but not all of it is exactly great quality.Some of the herbs he’d had last week to help him with his persistent fever had set his spirit soaring from his body and into the sky even as he lay in bed, he’d sworn he could hear the moon dancing and the trees calling his name.Maybe he’s had some bad herbs again?)

“Wait,” he says again.“Is that _Lee’s_ uncle?”

Longshot raises an eyebrow, nocks another arrow, watches and waits as the figure in white and blue strolls down the street as though taking a peaceful walk through the garden, fire at his fists, ready to push _his own people_ out of Ba Sing Se.

 _I guess they were firebenders after all,_ says Longshot’s eyebrow, and Jet’s _speechless._

(He remembers the first time he’d met Lee, on the ferry to Ba Sing Se.A refugee, he’d thought, another outcast like him.Scarred and ruined by the Fire Nation, like him.Someone who’d want to _fight back_ , like him.

He’d liked Lee, then, liked what he thought they’d had in common.

And then he'd hated him— hated that he was a firebender, the enemy, a wolf-bear in sheep-pig’s clothing— the Fire Nation— in Ba Sing Se— in the walls, the last refuge— there’d been no escape from them— _anywhere_ —

And he’d hated that Lee had made him break his promise to Smellerbee and Longshot, his friends, his kids, his family, about starting fresh.

(Maybe he’d hated Lee because he’d hated himself.Hated that he couldn’t tell an ashmaker on sight, hated that once he knew he couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop fighting, even though he’d _promised—)_

He’d hated that Lee had let him get dragged away, even after— after the ferry— let him get dragged away by— and the lights— and _there is no war in—_ )

“Shit,” Jet says.He turns to Longshot.“Where’s Smellerbee?”

Longshot gestures vaguely at the city out the window.Jet swallows hard, looking out at the plumes of smoke and ash rising above the rooftops of the Lower Ring, listening to the sounds of battle.He wants to fight, his palms itch with the urge to take up his hook-swords and help, and he twitches as he’s filled with the _need_ to run out into the streets and not stop searching until he finds his sister, but even walking across the room makes his ribs ache and his head spin.He’s in no shape to fight.

Jet’s not the praying type, but silently, as he watches the war out the window, as Longshot shoots arrow after arrow after arrow, he begs whatever spirits will listen to let his family live. 

(When Smellerbee comes back a few hours later, streaked with ash and makeshift warpaint, brandishing a knife she hadn’t had before, _unharmed,_ Jet doesn’t cry.That’s what he’d say, at least.If anyone asks.

He doesn’t cry, either, when the Fire Nation banner on the Earth King’s palace burns to ash, when the enemy soldiers are rounded up and removed from the city, when the shouts start that the war is _over._ If anyone asks)

* * *

Every morning Jet wakes up in a free Ba Sing Se, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

The war is over, after a century of fighting, and Jet doesn’t know what to _do._ He should be happy— he _is_ happy!— but still he finds himself wandering the streets of the entire city after work every day, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets and his head bowed.

The thing is, he was _shaped_ by the war.He was scarred and ruined by the Fire Nation— invisibly, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still burn in the middle of the night, red and black against the backs of his eyelids.

They took _everything_ from him (maybe not everything.The Fire Nation didn’t take Smellerbee and Longshot.The Fire Nation didn’t take Pipsqueak and The Duke either (Jet knows Smellerbee’s been in contact, knows she’s been hiding the letters because everyone else is still mad at him. _He’s_ still mad at him).The Fire Nation didn’t even take Katara and her brother and the Avatar).

So he doesn’t understand how the world has _forgotten_ everything the Fire Nation’s done.The villages they’ve burned, the innocents they’ve killed, the soldiers they’ve massacred.He doesn’t understand how the owner of the fruit cart at the end of his street, the soldier back from war with enormous burn scars up one arm, can smile and laugh and sell fruit to visitors in red.

He hears the announcements made by city criers, reads the broadsheets like anyone else.He knows that the Fire Nation has crowned a new Firelord who wants to end the war, who’s removing troops from occupied cities and towns, who’s making peace with the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes, who’s supported by the damn _Avatar._ He’s _been_ there to watch as Fire Nation tanks rolled out of the city, columns of soldiers leaving the walls intact behind them.He’s even heard talk of reparations, trade agreements and new treaties, efforts by the Fire Nation to make up for the harm they’ve caused.

And Jet doesn’t _understand._

So he wanders the streets of Ba Sing Se, hands in his pockets and chin to his chest, and tries not to flinch or scream every time he catches a glimpse of red or orange out of the corner of his eye, every time he smells smoke, every time he hears the snaps and pops of a fire.

It’s when he’s out walking, one afternoon, too tired to think and too restless to go home, that he sees Lee.

Jet freezes.He ducks into an alley (and thank the spirits the Middle Ring buildings are close enough together in this neighborhood to have alleys) and peeks his head out.

Ahead of him, on the other side of the street but heading his way.A figure (a boy, he thinks, but no, that’s not quite right— Lee had been his age, old enough to fight, old enough to know the evils of his country and not _care_ as Jet got _dragged away_ for trying to expose him) dressed in muted green and brown robes, dark hair shaggy around his face, longer than it had been but not long enough to cover the burn scar over one eye.

Jet swallows hard.He feels ill.He feels dizzy.He doesn’t know what to think.

(Lee— Lee the firebender— is still in Ba Sing Se.Lee, who had snuck into the safe city like a flame-burping little weasel-snake, who Jet had asked to join his team before he had found out the truth— Lee is still in Ba Sing Se.Lee— in Ba Sing Se— in the walls, the last refuge— but there’s no more need for refuge, not now that the war is done— but there’d been no escape from them, from the Fire Nation— there’s still no escape— _especially now that the war is over_ —)

Jet waits until Lee passes him, walking placidly down the road seemingly by himself, hands tucked into the sleeves of his robe, no swords or knives in sight, and then he steps out, and—

And then he remembers his promise.He’d promised his brother and sister, he’d promised Longshot and Smellerbee, that they’d start new.In Ba Sing Se they’d be able to start a new life, go on the straight-and-narrow, leave their days of fighting tooth and nail against the Fire Nation behind.He’d promised them, so long ago, newly arrived in the city and still _so on edge,_ that as soon as he’d found proof of Lee’s firebending he’d go to the guards.

After the war had ended, Jet had promised again.He’d promised his family he’d keep his head down, not cause trouble, not get dragged into anything, not try to fight every enemy soldier or ashmaker he saw roaming the streets of his final refuge.

Jet remembers his promise, and he pauses, and then looks around the busy street until he spots an Earth Kingdom guard.The guards in Ba Sing Se are still kind of corrupt, falling apart like everything is in the Lower Ring (and like things kind of are in the Middle and Upper Rings, even if everyone likes to pretend otherwise), but that doesn’t matter right now.

Jet grabs the guard’s arm, ignoring his shout of protest, and drags him into the street until he can see Lee again.“There!Arrest him!” Jet says loudly, pointing.No one but the guard pays him any attention.

“What?” the guard says, annoyed.

“That man’s a firebender!” Jet insists, pointing again.Lee’s almost down the street, almost to the corner, almost out of sight, and if this guard doesn’t _fucking listen—_

“So?” the guard says, bored.

Jet lets go of his arm, jaw dropping.“Arrest him!” he exclaims again, looking desperately down the street again.Lee’s stopped, and he’s peering in the window of a shop, hair falling over his eyes.The crowds close in front of him, and Jet’s afraid that when they clear again he’ll be gone.“You have to arrest him,” he says, turning to the guard again.“He’s a firebender, I know he is, and he’s going to hurt someone, you have to stop him.You can’t just let him go!”

The guard gives him a pitying look.“I can’t arrest someone just because they’re a firebender,” he says, taking a step away from Jet, back to his post.“The war’s been over for six months, kid.Firebending’s not exactly illegal.”The guard looks him over, assessing him.“Head home,” he says.“Get some rest.I don’t want to see another kid in prison for trying to fight every firebender they see.”

Jet staggers backwards.He _doesn’t_ _understand._

He knows the war is over, he _knows_ it, but six months can’t change one hundred years of cruelty and savagery.The Fire Nation is still evil, its firebenders the enemy, no matter what the new Firelord seems to want to do.Which means that an evil, cruel, savage, _firebending_ enemy is wandering the streets of Ba Sing Se, and the guards don’t fucking _care._

Jet decides, then, that it’s up to him.The rest of the world might have gone crazy, might for some reason be trusting the Fire Nation bastards that tried to burn down the Earth Kingdom, but he knows better.He _knows_ better.

(Jet decides to forget Lee’s uncle, in the battle for Ba Sing Se, using fire to burn the Fire Nation out, to cauterize the gaping wound that left the city bleeding dry, fighting against his own people in white and blue.After all, the Fire Nation always lies.No exceptions)

So if the guards won’t do anything, won’t step in to stop fucking _ashmakers_ from wandering around the Earth Kingdom’s once-great refuge, maybe it’s time for a little vigilante justice.

(Jet remembers, uncomfortably, that sometimes not even vigilante justice is enough.He remembers the one time he’d met the Blue Spirit— _The_ Blue Spirit!— on a roof in the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se, and he’d almost fallen off the roof in his surprise when the black-clad, blue-masked outlaw had suddenly appeared.

“Join me!” Jet had hissed, once he’d gotten over his shock.“I know you hate the Fire Nation too— and there’s one of them here!Lee, he works in a tea shop, and I _know_ he’s a firebender, help me catch him—!”

The Blue Spirit had seemed to stare at him, utterly unreadable behind the snarl of his mask, and then had flitted away across the rooftops without another word)

(Jet remembers, head aching, the _last_ time he’d tried to expose Lee for the spark-shitting scum that he is.He remembers a fight, dual swords agains dual hooks, remembers getting dragged away by the guards, remembers being handed over to the Dai Li, remembers _there is no war in Ba Sing Se._

Remembers losing everything that had driven him, and forgetting everything that had made him break his promise)

Jet is about to break his promise again, and it tastes like ashes in his mouth.He hates Lee for making him break his promise to Smellerbee and Longshot.

(He hates _himself,_ because he can’t _let go—)_

Jet takes off down the street, dodging through the crowds.He skids to a stop at the end of the street, edging around the corner.And there’s Lee, head still held high, back straight, walking down the street as though he doesn’t have a care in the fucking world.

Jet’s broken promise tastes like dry ash in his mouth, and he follows.He follows Lee as he walks through the streets of Ba Sing Se, passing into the Upper Ring.It’s harder to follow, when the buildings are farther apart and he’s dressed working-class enough to stick out like a sore thumb, but Jet lived for years of his life evading capture and sneaking through the trees.Following one oblivious Fire Nation bastard is easy enough.

Lee seems to get more cautious, for some reason, when he enters the Upper Ring.In the Middle Ring he had been turning his face away from people he had passed on the streets, but before going into the Upper Ring he pulls out a cloak from somewhere with a hood perfect to hide his face.

Jet scowls.He follows.

Lee leads him to a tea shop in the bustling shopping district of the Upper Ring.As he enters the tea shop, he flips back his hood.

Jet can see a smile, and it makes him _burn._

Without thinking (without even noticing the two guards on either side of the tea shop’s door, dressed not in Earth Kingdom greens and browns but in formal Fire Nation reds) Jet bursts into the tea shop.It’s not busy, but everyone there freezes.

Jet freezes too, eyes darting around the room.Because it’s not busy, and he knows _everyone there._

At a table, Katara and her brother and the Avatar are gathered around what looks like a map.

The blind earthbending girl is by the counter, halfway through chugging a steaming cup of tea.

Lee’s uncle is behind the counter, looking absolutely _appalled_ at her, and then he fucking _smiles_ when he glances up to see Jet (and Jet _does not think_ about the way a figure in white and blue with fire at his fists had smiled gratefully during the battle for Ba Sing Se after Longshot shot an arrow at a Fire Nation soldier)

And Lee— _Lee—_ he’s behind the counter with his uncle, and his jaw drops when he sees Jet.

“Hello,” Lee’s uncle says with a smile.He’s the first to recover.“Welcome to the Jasmine Dragon!I’m afraid we’re not open yet.”

Jet’s eyes never leave Lee.“Firebender,” he snarls, and it tastes like ash.“You’re a firebender.”

“Jet?” Katara whispers.Her chair scrapes as she stands.

“What in Yue’s light,” her brother whispers.

“I thought you were dead!” Lee shouts.His brow furrows, and he steps out from behind the counter.A bad move, that means he’s closer to Jet.A good move, that means his hands are free to firebend.

There’s a knife in Jet’s hand before he knows what he’s doing, and Katara is shouting something, and Lee’s hands go up, and then the knife isn’t in Jet’s hand anymore and he’s being forced to his knees with his hands behind his back by the two guards he hadn’t seen outside.

“My lord!” one of them shouts, and suddenly Katara and the Avatar are both between Jet and Lee.

“What are you doing!” Katara shouts.

The Avatar kicks the knife away and one of the guards behind Jet picks it up, tucks it into her belt.“We’ll take care of him, my lord,” she says, and then Lee is behind Katara, a hand on her shoulder, gently nudging past her.

“Wait,” he says.He’s still frowning, looking down at Jet.The guards wait.

Jet looks up at Lee, grits his teeth.He wants to spit, but his mouth is dry as ashes.“You might have everyone else fooled,” he says instead, his eyes darting from Lee to Katara to the Avatar and back to Lee.“But I know the truth, _firebender_.”His lip curls, and he looks up at Katara.“Did you know that your friend is the same kind of person that killed your mother?”He looks at the Avatar.“Your people?”

The Avatar looks upset at that, and Katara opens her mouth, and Lee— he looks a little like he wants to cry. Or yell.“Jet,” he says.“How are you not dead?”

Jet sneers at him with as much dignity as he can muster, on his knees and held by guards in front of an ashmaker and the gullible people he’s duped.“Why would you fucking care,” he says.“You didn’t care when the Dai Li took me away for trying to expose you.” _There is no war in Ba Sing Se.There is no war— in Ba Sing Se— in anywhere—_ “How would you even fucking _know?”_

Lee’s brow furrows.“There was— uh, there was a play?” he says.The fingers of one hand twist uncomfortably in the fabric of his green and brown robe.“You died in, in the play.I hadn’t— I didn’t know.I didn’t think—“

“It’s not like the rest of the play was super accurate,” the blind earthbender says with a snort.“After all, you don’t see Azula on the throne and Fireloser Ozai in charge of the rest of the world.So I guess this is just another thing they didn’t know.”

“I guess that’s a hazard when your main source of information is a cabbage merchant,” the Avatar says thoughtfully.

“Tui and La,” Katara breathes.“Jet, I’m so _sorry—“_ Now she looks like _she_ wants to cry, and Jet’s stomach twists uncomfortably.

“After— everything,” Lee says, swallowing.“Katara asked— we made inquiries, asked the Earth King— but the Dai Li didn’t keep records of all the people they—“

Jet shakes his head.They’re getting distracted.“Katara,” he says urgently, making eye contact.“Please, trust me, you need to _run._ Your ‘friend’ is a _firebender.”_

Lee bites his lip, gestures slightly.The guards pull Jet to his feet, let go of him, although one hand remains on his shoulder.“I’m not hiding anymore,” Lee says.“I know— back, the first time, when Uncle and I were still hiding here, and we couldn’t be honest— you were probably right to think of us as a threat.I was angry, I fought you, but I understand why you felt like you had to.”He takes a shuddery breath.“But the war is over now.We— the Fire Nation— we’re trying to fix everything, make amends.Make _peace._ Even though— even though we did so much wrong. _Because_ we did so much wrong.”

Jet looks desperately to Katara.“He admitted it!” he exclaims.“War or not, Lee’s a firebender!He’s from the _Fire Nation._ ”

Katara frowns at him.“Jet, we know.”

Jet gapes at her.“You—?”

The blind earthbender hops down from her perch at the counter, wanders over to join her friends and Lee.“’Course we know,” she says with a wide grin, and punches Lee on the arm.He glares at her.The earthbender’s grin somehow widens further.“It’d be kinda hard for him to be the Firelord if he wasn’t from the Fire Nation.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Jet wheezes, “He's the _what?_ ”

Lee rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably, shrugs.“Uh, yeah,” he says.“I’m kind of the Firelord?”He waves a little awkwardly.“It’s not Lee, though. I’m Zuko.Um, Firelord Zuko.”

There’s another beat of silence as everything clicks into place— why no one would arrest him for being a firebender, the guards calling him _my lord,_ the presence of the Avatar in this tea shop surrounded by all his friends, even Lee’s (Zuko’s) uncle (the fucking _Dragon of the West)_ fighting in white and blue at the battle of Ba Sing Se and smiling up at the window as Longshot saves his life.

Jet’s speechless.

 _I guess they were firebenders after all,_ he thinks wildly.Lee— Zuko— is _his age_ , he thinks, he’s his age and he’s old enough to fight and he’s old enough to know the evils of his country and he’s the _fucking Firelord_ — and now Jet’s tried to attack him with a knife for being a firebender.

“Shit,” he says.

“Young man,” the Firelord’s uncle says with a smile.“Would you like to join us all for some tea?”

(When Jet goes home that night, head spinning with everything Katara and her friends had told him about the end of the war, he finds Longshot and Smellerbee waiting for him.

And then he can’t stop laughing.He laughs until he _cries_.

 _I told you Lee was a firebender_ , he says to Smellerbee and Longshot. _I **told** you.He’s a firebender, he’s the fucking **Firelord.**_

 _Spirits!_

And then Smellerbee shows him letters, from his old Freedom Fighters, from his old family.

 _Maybe we should leave Ba Sing Se,_ she suggests.None of them have a home to go back to, but maybe they can all make a new home together.But not in Ba Sing Se, not in the city that’s no longer a refuge.

Jet looks down at the letters, written in shaky, simple sentences, spelling imperfect and scattered with cross-outs and blots, and nods.

 _We can leave Ba Sing Se,_ he says.They don’t need a refuge anymore.They don’t need to hide, to run, to fight. After so long, the war is over)

**Author's Note:**

> This is stylistically (and tense-wise... can you tell that past is usually my default?) really different than anything I've written before, so if you enjoyed maybe drop me a line? I can also be found [here](https://iwritebetterthanispeak.tumblr.com/). Thanks ever so much for reading!


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